Glass Flowers
by Glass Mermaid
Summary: Draco and Ginny, each one twisted and pulled by the ties that bind them.
1. Chapter 1: Glass Lilies

AN: This is actually part one of a series of vignettes I wrote a while back about the relationships of the people of Hogwarts. The rest is to be posted somewhere, (I don't know where yet) as they don't pertain to D/G.

I am still writing Before the Storm. This is not set in that universe. This is just a bit of fun while we wait.

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It might happen on an overcast day in autumn, when the leaves are scattered wings of orange and gold, clinging to barren limbs and watching their brothers descend. Perhaps the rain has fallen, and the smell of earth is heavy and cold, reddening their noses and chilling their fingers. The wind blows and coins of yellow - cast away brothers - skitter and dance along the ground, caught by a child's hand of wind and thrust forward in a reckless tumble. Perhaps the sky the boy and girl meet beneath is grey, a sea of storms sifting silently above their heads awaiting its moment. Rocks peer balefully from beneath tattered grass, disturbed from their old slumber by sharp cold weather and the loss of Demeter's affection.

When they see one another, perhaps he stops, unaware that he has been holding his heart in his throat until that moment, wondering if she would truly come. And she is nervous, awkward beneath his scrutiny and the pressing weight of their secrets. Perhaps they stop upon a hill, and the wind steals their words and sends them spiralling towards the brink of nothing and they only catch them when they are faded and broken.

Maybe her hair is a burnt sunset against the muted landscape around her, sweeping madly about her face only to be repeatedly brushed away from her eyes, the color of topaz gazed on through rich earth. Her vibrancy contrasts his fairness; his hair white blonde, his eyes silver and light. He would seem out of place - out of sorts - without the usual shield of his coldness, and she would absently worry his green scarf may be blown from his neck as the air buffets them. He might reach for her, and she would do nothing, so he would let his hands fall and merely stare.

He would wonder if it was over.

He would wonder if it had ever begun.

"Are you all right?"

A mundane, suspicious question is asked, nearly as offensive in its simplicity as it is in its implication that he may not be.

"Obviously. And you?"

Softly, she would nod, and perhaps she would then look away, searching the barren hills and faded trees with something akin to hope. He would take the time to examine her, counting her freckles and the rips and snarls in her scarf. She might scuff the toe of her old shoe in the dirt, adding another story to the already impressive history hidden in the grungy suede and he would look on with impassive eyes.

The wind would pick up; the child's hand becoming a man's and striking at them. Perhaps he shoves his gloved fingers - expensive and personally tailored - into his cloak and sighs.

"Did we meet for _nothing_ then?" he would bite out after a moment, and she would turn to him, her eyes haunted.

His lips might be pressed into a firm line, the sculpt of them harsh. Her sad eyes may trace his sharp features, beautiful in their aristocracy, and remember the whisper of his fingers along her spine.

"There's always something," she would reply, and she may feel the cutting edge of her poverty like a blade across his well collected gentility. 

"People are expecting me. I cannot be late," he would then challenge, and  
maybe, his fingers would fist in his pockets where she could not see them.

A strand of her hair, a crimson sheath caught in the wind, would flutter and he would watch it shine. Around them the world would be dying, awaiting its cold slumber, and the rush of their blood and the staccato of their pulses would set them apart from autumn as it took shape around them.

"Than don't be late."

Her dismissive voice would wound him, and his vanity might rise, creating a brick shelter of pride and confidence around his heart.

"Is Potter waiting for you?" he would snap scathingly, spots of red appearing high on his cheekbones. "Does he know where his leashed Weasley – his _sweetheart_ – is _now_? Out risking everything she ever _dreamed_ about for a moment with his _enemy_?"

Perhaps he would turn to go, and her hand might reach out and take his arm. He would look and see her brown glove was missing a finger and her perfectly trimmed nail was painted pink. He would tilt his face to the sky, closing his eyes as the grey light bleached him of color and in that moment he might have been a ghost - Trying to forget it was her hand touching him, trying to forget that she wasn't his.

"You and I don't belong together," she might whisper.

"That never stopped us before," he would say, and his voice would be thick with denial, acid, and dismissal.

She may go to reply, but her words would be lost in the sea of her despair, and regret would strangle her voice. She might turn instead, standing beside him and a world apart, listening to the wind rip the sky around them to pieces.

"I could never deny you. Despite everything you are, everything you stand for..." he would say coldly, harshly, and she would nod.

"I'm glad."

Perhaps he would reach for her then, and she would step into his arms and raise her face to his. His lips, cold and firm, might find hers and she would clutch at the shoulders of his frigid black cloak and feel the wealth through her gloves. He would hold her tightly, her hair a tempest of red whipping their cheeks and smelling of lavender and soap, and he would feel the icy wet of her tears before the wind stole them.

Perhaps she would be the first to break away, perhaps he would. But when his arms fell, she would cover her mouth; blinking, wounded and forcing herself not to cry. They would stare at one another, willing the other to look away first; give into the pain of losing sight of what is important, and he would be the first to do so.

Perhaps he always was.

"We will see each other again," he would say firmly, coldly, a touch of the  
arrogance fitting into his words as it had when they first met, and she would nod because it was true.

Then he would walk away, and she might watch the hem of his cloak flare behind his long legs, and bitter-sweetly admire the casual grace of his stride. When she leaves in the other direction, perhaps she will break into a run and feel like a little girl playing tag again, only this time there is no laughter. The storming clouds would roar to life behind her and the sky would fall like shattered crystal.

Later, in the confines of her room, she might be gazing out her window watching the rain drizzle down. The cold panes of glass would freeze her fingers to the bone, and she would rest her forehead against it and shiver. Perhaps, as she watched, she would remember a silvery blonde young man striding across the courtyard dressed in black and green, and her breath would hitch, caught along the edge of heartbreak. She would recall how he paused, looking high, high up at her window through the rain, and how their eyes had met before he had walked away.

Perhaps it would all be a fantasy, desire lost to her imaginings, and taking her to dampened hills and windswept kisses, as she remembers seeing him throw his arm around a curvy brunette, his handsome face breaking into a tight, distant grin.

Perhaps.


	2. Chapter 2: Glass Daisies

They sit by the brook of their childhood days, dipping their feet into the clear water and enjoying the memories. One is blissfully oblivious, laying back against the moss and feeling the moist earth underneath him dampening his clothing. It promises discomfort later, and stray blades of grass will stick to his back in bruised green smears, but for now it is freedom, and it is pure.

He lives for days like these, away from Hogwarts, away from everything horrible happening to his world, away from the trials and tribunals of everyday adolescence that pick and prod at his brain until he cannot concentrate…With a sigh, he stretches his arms and crosses them above his head, pillowing his shock of orange hair with them. It is a rare break in the dreary cold of autumn, and he has dragged his unusually pensive sister out to enjoy the momentary sunshine; it takes him back to summer days when they had come down here with an old net and pail to catch pixies or frogs. He would hold her hand because their mother was certain she would wander off if he let her go, and he would

grudgingly look after her, the older brother at work. But when they had reached the brook they were friends, not siblings, and they would take turns dipping the dented bucket into the shallow stream, or flicking the tattered net at imagined glimmers together.

"Gin?" he says now, and she turns to him with brows raised in question.

He feels a momentary flush of family pride at how well the youngest Weasley has turned out, and he grins at her.

"Remember the time we found an imp down here?"

She does, and she smiles faintly. They had wandered down here early one morning when the mist still clung coldly to the dewy grass, and had startled a twittering little imp from his morning jig. He had squeaked irately and waved a small fist, but they had only stared at him, wide eyed, until he had shaken his green head and left.

"Of course Ron, when we told mom she wouldn't let us outside until George and Fred and gone and checked out the entire yard."

She resumes her melancholy gaze of the brook, blind to the shimmering glade around her broken into a thousand shades of green and yellow. Her mind is back with autumn hills and moonlit nights.

"Miss Harry, do you Ginny?" her brother asks softly, and she blinks, startled.

"Y-yes, Ron."

She closes her brown eyes, the lie like poison against her heart. Her slim fingers clench the moss beneath her and pull it up. A nervous action, a weakness. _He_ would smile at her superciliously, telling her all the obvious reasons she was not in Slytherin and all the ways she was beautiful for the same with just a touch.

She briefly recalls a warm breath skimming her knee, and eyes glittering like silver diamonds in the darkness of a bedroom. A pale hand sliding up her thigh, and him resting

his head against her stomach. His hair was white in the moonlight, and felt like satin beneath her hands.

"Of course," she sighs, and opens her eyes.

Her brother sits up now, and his rust coloured sweater creates a new hue of clashing color with his hair. He smiles in that funny way of his, his mouth quirking to one side with his eyebrow lifting disbelievingly on the other. For a moment they say nothing, and Ron takes the opportunity to pull off his battered shoes – a cast off of Fred's – and his socks, gasping a little when he dips his feet into the autumn cooled creek. He turns his attention back to his sister, and his eyes are pale blue and friendly. He elbows her jokingly in the side.

"Why so glum, Gin? Aren't you happy? Seems to me that I see you one moment and you're so bright and cheery I can hardly stand you… Then the next minute you look as if you just lost your best mate."

She glances at him from beneath lowered lashes and shakes her head. Her hair, a dark fiery crimson, falls in a straight sheath over her face and hides her blushing cheeks; she is red with shame, not embarrassment.

"And you Ron, are you happy?" she whispers, dipping her hand into the cold

creek and shivering slightly when the softly drifting water tickles her wrist.

Ron looks at her askance, before throwing up his arms and smiling half heartedly.

"I'm as happy as can be expected! I've got the best family in the world, the smartest mates a bloke could have, and my sister is in love with the hero of our world!"

He laughs, unaware of his sister's rapidly paling face or her tightening throat. She wipes a hand across her mouth and pulls the sleeves of her itchy green sweater over her fists.

Another tic, another weakness.

He would smile so coolly, so confidently, and in his eyes would be a smirk. She loses herself in her memories.

Ron Weasley is always happy, or at least honest. It is something both expected of him by others and pressed upon him by himself. For if he was not the jovial one – the blunt one – then the world around his best friend may crumble. Harry Potter is fragile and gentle despite his inner strength, and as his best friend Ron must maintain the lie that even if the world falls apart, a nightmare that is rapidly becoming true, Ronald Weasley will stay the same and is there for him.

"Ron," Ginny whispers brokenly, because she's always known him better, "Are you really okay?"

Shifting, he turns to face her and his eyes have darkened. His smile fades and he looks pained. He digs a rock up from the ground and drops it into the water, smiling when a satisfying plunk sounds. He wipes the dirt off his fingers with the grass. Ron ignores the question for a moment, content, but he cannot hide for long and he is notoriously lousy at hiding anything from anyone.

Always the cheerful one. Always the honest one.

"If you're talking about Dumbledore, I'm doing what I can. I just can't believe he's gone. If you're talking about Hermione, we both know that it wouldn't have worked. She's in love with her books, not me. I still love her; how could I not? But she's not for me."

"Are you going to break up with her?"

A laugh answers her question, and Ginny looks surprised.

"Gin! 'Mione and I were never steady. Just a snog here and there, a date in between the fights! If you ask me, she has her cap set for someone else."

"Oh," she breathes, and relaxes.

Her heart is heavy, and her mind is filled with torturous, traitorous thoughts of someone forbidden. Her brother takes his feet, large and pale with cold, and wipes them on the moss. He grins ruefully at his sister and shakes his head.

"This isn't like you, Gin. Are there problems with you and Harry?"

He eyes her quizzically, and she avoids his gaze.

"No," she says, and her voice is bitter. "Harry is perfectly fine without me."

Ron frowns, eyeing her thoughtfully.

"Harry told me he offered to take you with him to London. Can you believe that? Muggle London!"

His voice is misty, and he tamps down the wave of jealousy that Harry had offered to bring Ginny, but not him. Burying her face in her knees, Ginny remembers the offer and the way her heart had sunk. For if she went to London, how could she be there to get owls from the other? What if he stopped by? What if he came for her?

These are irrational thoughts, for the calm and cold Draco Malfoy would never do something so impetuous as stop by the Burrow and risk exposing their affair. And here she is, three weeks later, with no owl, no visit, not a word. Her heart is heavy and she cannot eat, can barely sleep, and can barely think of anything but him.

Her guilt chews at her gut like a volatile potion.

Looking at her, Ron is thoughtful and sad. His darling sister, always there to lend a smile and a hug, constantly brash and spirited and brave, seems to have sunk into herself and lost her light. And he is awkward and heavy handed when it comes to emotion, and can offer no solace for if he does he may break the fragile glass around her heart.

Ron sighs and looks away, admiring the trees and the grass, and the sunshine dappling the world through them.

"I can tell you… No matter what happens you'll always be my sister, Ginny. We'll see this war through to the end."

She swallows and nods silently. If she speaks, she'll cry.

Gathering up his shoes, Ron walks slowly back to the Burrow, and in his mind he remembers the little girl version of the young woman behind him. Funny that…How everything seems to fade when love blossoms.


	3. Chapter 3: Glass Dandelions

"How was it Harry?"

"Did you bring us something?"

"Were there lots of muggles?"

The questions spring up eagerly, quickly, and the overwhelmed boy smiles in surprise and bewilderment as they flow over him. He laughs slightly, the sound happy despite the tautness of his muscles and the strain of tension in his spine. Harry blushes, looking at the floor, and runs a hand through his messy black hair.

The Burrow, home of the Weasley family, is filled with clutter and chaos, with most of the children strewn about the warm living room, eyes trained on the newly arrived guest.

"London? It was fun. There were a lot of people, and excellent toffee."

"What does it do?" George, one of the twins, leans forward on his knees, expecting some ingenious prank from the muggles but he is to be disappointed.

"Muggle candy doesn't do anything, George. It just tastes nice."

The redhead leans back, disappointed, and shares an aggrieved look with his brother, Fred. Harry glances around the Burrow, but there is still no sudden appearance of

the youngest Weasley.

"I'm sure our Gin is off doing something within the warded forest, Harry. If she knew you were coming to surprise her, she would have been here for sure."

This comes from Molly Weasley, mother to the red haired brood surrounding him, and where they lacked in money they gained in love from the plump and stubborn witch. Smiling, Harry turns to his best friend Ron and punches him lightly in the shoulder.

"And you Ron, what have you been up too?"

His friend smiles, but it is weak and strained, and he can barely meet Harry's dark green eyes.

"Nothing special, Harry. Just hanging around this old place."

"Ron, I know you wanted to come… But instead I brought London to you."

Reaching into his suitcase, Harry lifts a crumpled brown bag and hands it to Ron. While he unwraps it, Harry proceeds to retrieve another bag from his case, and hands out toffee to the Weasley's.

"I thought you would like a bit of a taste," he murmurs, and the fascinated wizards bite, suck and chew on the treat hesitantly.

Behind him, Ron swears softly and his mother rebukes him.

"Harry!" says Ron, smiling, and the Boy-Who-Lived returns to his seat and watches his best friend look his present up and down.

It is a remote controlled mini, a bright red emblazoned with the Union Jack.

"It's a car! What does it do?" he asks excitedly, and Harry shows him how to put batteries in the remote case and the car itself.

In a minute it is up and running, careening about the tables and chairs and bumping into

feet as Ron laughs.

"No magic at all! How does it do it?" Arthur demands, astonished, and Harry

just smiles.

Let them wonder; it is more exciting that way.

Soon Ron allows his brothers to have a go with the coupe, but when he turns back to his friend again his eyes are glum. Harry frowns, perturbed, and drags his suitcase up the stairs to the bedroom he shares with Ron. He releases a relieved sigh when he gets to

the room and throws himself down on the bed.

For a moment he is silent, content within the moment, before another issue presses forth in his mind and sends a bubble of apprehension with it. Sitting up and tilting his head, Harry focuses on the other.

"Alright Ron, what is it? You've been shifty eyed and moping ever since I came."

Shaking his head, Ron sits down on his own bed, but his insides are twisting into painful burning knots.

_For he knows where Ginny is. And it is not in town. _

"Harry, why did you come back so soon?" he asks instead, and Harry sighs.

"London was boring. Hermione had her own things to do, and she'd been there before…"

Irritation surges within the Weasley, and he shoves it away before his honest nature demands he speak of it. For Harry could have invited him, and he hadn't.

"So when do you expect Ginny in?"

Harry's voice is hesitant and excited, and Ron feels sick inside, and weak…And angry.

Fury suddenly makes his hands clench when he remembers seeing Ginny smiling excitedly at them that morning, and the way her smile glowed with a happiness that had been missing as of late. She had left, saying that she was off to the village to visit a friend, but Molly had sent Ron after her for Gin had forgotten her scarf. He had ran to catch up to her, the well worn brown wool a chocolaty flag trailing behind him, but when

he reached the edge of their property she had been there; speaking softly to someone he could not see.

Curious, he had taken a step closer, hidden slightly behind a crop of trees, and made to call out to her. But when he had moved forward, his life had fallen before beneath him, for Ginny was being drawn into the arms of Draco Malfoy. The blonde had whispered

to her, an expression on intense concentration tracing a path across his pale and handsome face, and his sister had touched his cheek softly, her fingers trailing down his chin.

There was something so fragile about seeing them together, as if he had stumbled along the edge of a precipice and they stood on the other side; fire and ice wrapped within the kind of beauty meant to be broken.

Ginny had smiled, and Draco had nodded once. Taking her hand, he led her into the forest and by the time Ron had regrouped and chased after them they were gone. It was strange, but he felt no fear for Ginny, his little sister who had just wandered off in the arms of the boy last seen running off with Snape, murderer of Albus Dumbledore. He knew she would be okay. He knew it. And now, here he was with his baby sister's beau, and his best mate.

"Ron?"

He has been silent for too long, and he shakes his head, feeling tears burn behind his eyelids, because he hates his life as it stands now. All there is, is fear and death, and deception.

"I don't know, Harry. I don't know."

A lie. Honest Ron, telling a lie… But he couldn't… He had to talk to Gin first, and get it straight. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps she was a spy for the Order. Perhaps she was under the Imperius curse. Perhaps he was grasping at straws that broke, coarse and brittle within his grip...

"Is everything alright with Ginny?" Harry whispers, seriousness etching a mask of age onto the youth of his features.

It is wrong to put it there, but if Ron tells him the truth it might crack any and all masks Harry has to keep him sane.

"Why wouldn't she be?" he asks instead, slowly and carefully and the other boy

nods, subsiding.

Ron is perversely pleased that he managed not to lie again, instead merely twisting the truth. Again he feels sick.

"So, Hermione has a new guy," Harry sighs, and Ron's attention is snared.

A pang in his chest informs him rudely that his feelings for their other friend have not yet faded, and he pushes it away.

"Anyone we know?"

"She wouldn't say. She seemed rather obsessed about the whole lot of it, and she kept

sneaking out at night to see him."

Hermione had also been staying in London, on holiday with her dentist parents, where they could attend a dental conference, a last break before the storm. Ron is glad he had not been there to see her off to her nightly trysts.

A sudden clambering of feet on stairs meets their ears, and Ron turns weary eyes to the door.

"Ron!" Ginny bursts into the room, eyes alight with excitement and a warm content that had not been there that morning.

Ron refuses to accept its meaning.

"Mom told me there was something up here for me…"

She trails off when Harry stands and greets her quietly. Her eyes widen, and her creamy skin blanches until she seems like a spectre.

"Harry," she whispers, and her eyes tear up.

"I came early, Gin. I wanted to surprise you."

Ron watches the two hollowly, feeling as if the weight of the world rests on his shoulders. For a moment he hates Ginny for her dishonesty. Then he hates Harry, for being so tragic Ginny cannot stand to let him go else he break. But mostly he hates Malfoy, for the clear and utter love Ron had seen written on his hateful, cowardly, aristocratic face that morning. Malfoy's didn't love, they only destroyed… Now Draco had shifted the balance of perception and he could not be forgiven.

"You shouldn't have, Harry," she chokes brokenly, and the light inside her flickers and gutters out, leaving the empty shell girl Ron has come to fear for in its place.

Harry notices the change immediately, and backs away.

"I'm sorry Ginny. I didn't know. I thought you wanted to…"

He trails off, and Ginny spins, her hair a curtain of red, and flees the room. Turning to Ron, Harry is stricken.

"Something's changed Ron. Ginny…It's over, isn't it?"

Saying nothing, Ron looks away. He couldn't bare to look, think or see.

"I knew it. I mean…She's been acting out of sorts…She wouldn't speak to me like she used to. I thought she was just upset about Dumbledore and so I…But…"

He swallows, and squeezes his eyes shut forcefully. Ron can't stand to see his best friend's face and he covers his own with his hands.

Damn Ginny. Damn Malfoy.

If he ever saw him again, he'd strangle the pasty blonde git.

They hurt Harry. They hurt his best mate.

"This is the way of things, I think," Harry whispers distantly, bitterly, and Ron doesn't look up from his hands.


	4. Chapter 4: Glass Forget Me Nots

A week before Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley broke apart for good, Harry had spent his days cavorting about London with Hermione Granger, and Hermione spent her nights wrapped within the soft enslavement of her paramour.

Their friendship - most pleasing through childhood - was quickly filling with the oncoming burdens of sexuality and the complicating threads of relationships. Beneath this rampant onslaught, it reached a new level of tension while one's love was falling apart, and the others freshly budding.

Harry found it difficult to reconcile the studious, know-it-all intellectual with the soft eyed girl who seemed to finally reach out and claim her newly realized femininity. And for her part, Hermione took only passing notice of Harry's hesitancy, preferring instead to deconstruct the fascinating fibres of her love life, and build them again in her mind until she remembered every breath, every whisper, with an accuracy that would have seemed near hysteria for anyone unaware of her factual mind.

London was noisy and crowded, filled with tourists and overflowing with British both sweet and sour. The two youths, glamored, had met up at a coffee shop in a quaint little district tailored to look as if customers had stepped into the posh 18th century, and had settled down for tea.

"Harry!" Hermione had greeted, and hugged him tightly.

With a fond grin, Harry had quietly said hello, and they had sat down at a small round table by a wide picture window.

"How do you find London, Harry? Tedious? Exciting? I come here every summer with Mom and Dad, and I still adore it. There are so many book shops to see!"

With a contented sigh, she glanced over the menu, then ordered a cup of black tea and a muffin. Harry ordered a chai tea and a strawberry pastry.

"I suppose so, Hermione. I've just noticed that there are a lot of people."

"Yes," The girl sighed, frowning slightly. "It is rather crowded and the pollution is horrible, but it's a beautiful place and the architecture is amazing! I love brick buildings especially, they always have a tale to tell. You can never-"

She broke off with a laugh, waving her hand and giggling breathlessly.

"I'm sorry, I'm babbling again."

Harry had looked at her, happy to see her so blatantly joyous but unsure why after all they'd just been through. Usually Hermione was only happy when she sat within a musty library with a never ending pile of books and the prospect of exams on the horizon.

"You seem cheerful," he had teased, and she blushed.

"Yes, I suppose I am, despite… You know."

Harry's green eyes darkened, and his mouth fell from its cheery smile. The old, rasping voice of Dumbledore whispered gently in his ears, along with a fresh wash of fury at the thought of Severus Snape.

Their tea arrived, and Hermione daintily sliced her muffin and smoothed a small pat of butter onto it. Harry dug into his pastry with quiet gusto, and a comfortable silence ensued. Both enjoyed the gentle music flitting from a hidden stereo by the cash register, and the busy floral wallpaper and the buttery wooden wainscoting finishing off each wall. Lace tablecloths decorated each table, and the smell of dried flowers and talcum powder rested gently over everything.

As he ate, Harry surveyed his friend fondly, noting the thick brown hair in its riot of curls, and how the familiar thickly lashed brown eyes seemed warmer then ever. Hermione met his eyes, her own deep, and lovingly traced the familiar worn scar of his forehead with her gaze, fighting the impulsive urge to ruffle his mussed black hair.

Finishing their edibles, they moved onto the cooling drinks. Hermione smiled at him and her brown eyes glittered.

Harry thought she looked beautiful, but not in the same way most girls did. Hermione was wholesome and sweet, like cinnamon buns covered in icing. He chuckled slightly at the thought, and she raised a brow.

"Something funny, Harry?"

"I was just thinking… You look happy despite everything."

Hermione only smiled, the contented, dreamy kind of smile he had seen a dozen times before in the faces of smitten lovers. He felt an uneasy ache twist his innards, the thought of walking upon uncharted ground with a girl he had childishly assumed would not change making him nervous.

Not noticing, Hermione stirred more cream into her tea – breaking her own rule on dairy products, Harry thought peevishly – and tucking a stray chestnut curl behind her ear.

"I am happy. Deliriously. I have tea and a muffin, why wouldn't I be?"

"Oh I don't know, Mione. I could go for some pizza…"

Scoffing, Hermione's mouth tightened primly.

"And how many pimples would you like with your toppings? Because that's all you'll get in the end."

It was slightly reassuring that Hermione hadn't done a full turn, but still remained the uptight and brilliant witch he and Ron loved so.

"…And some chips," Harry mused thoughtfully. "And a huge can of soda."

After carrying on in this vein for some time, Harry laughed and resigned himself to interrogating his best female friend for the cause of her light gaze and rosy cheeks..

"Hermione, what's got into you?"

The other seemed to deliberate for a moment, and while she weighed her thoughts Harry gulped his sweetened tea.

"Harry, can I tell you a secret?" she asked conspiratorially, and he nodded, intrigued.

Hermione wasn't known for secrets, thus this fell into the category of Things To Pay Attention To.

"Well," she said calmly, stirring her tea needlessly with a small silver spoon. "I've fallen

in love."

Harry smiled edgily, and he ran his hand through his hair.

"Who is it? Does he live in London or in our world?"

With that she seemed to withdraw, and she shook her head. Her curls bounced.

"I can't tell you that. Just…That he's wonderful. If you knew you'd never understand and I can't bare to lose you or Ron."

She lowered her voice to a soft murmur and said, "We can't afford to have any cracks within our ranks on our search for the horcruxes."

"Lose me? It's not Malfoy, is it?" he breathed, horrified, and Hermione laughed.

"No. Malfoy hates me, remember? Besides that, last we heard he was on the run. Just…Just know I'm happy…If you ever were to find out…Please remember he makes me happier then I've ever been."

Harry thought of Ron, and his excitement and curiosity dimmed. Their redheaded

friend had carried a torch for Hermione and she him, for a very long time.

"Alright Hermione. I trust you know what's best for you," Harry said quietly,

and she nodded.

An awkward silence fell, the secret hanging between them, before Hermione shoved it aside in her usual busy manner and leaned forward.

"How is Ginny?" she demanded, and Harry suddenly looked nervous.

"She's well, I suppose. I haven't…I mean, she doesn't…" he trailed off.

and the girl frowned.

"Doesn't what? Eat? Sing? Dance?"

"She doesn't seem very excited about me anymore."

Hermione stuck up her nose and crossed her arms. Her spoon fell on her saucer with a tinkling clatter, and she arched a brow.

"Do you expect a swoon each time you walk into a room? Perhaps a choir singing? Ginny is _growing_ _up_ Harry, and she's _maturing_. Besides, you did kind of call it quits at Dumbledore's funeral."

Exasperated, The-Boy-Who-Lived shook his head.

"Nothing like that. I mean, she won't even talk to me anymore! She just kind of smiles and shakes her head. If I didn't know better, I'd say she – "

He broke off, stubbornly closing his mouth.

Hermione stared at him for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision and steered the awkward conversation to safer waters.

"I insist you stay at our flat, Harry! My Aunt Audrey let's us stay there when we visit, and the place is absolutely enormous. It's been warded by Aurors and the Order alike! There's an extra bedroom, yellow, with a balcony and a bath. My family insists and so do I. Come, let's get your bags."

Exasperated as ever by Hermione's demanding and forthright manner, Harry shook his head and stood.

"Shall we then?"

Standing, Hermione smiled and took his arm, and after paying for their tea the two went to Harry's hotel room and gathered his meager things.

In the weeks that followed, Harry's initial concern over Hermione's love affair grew when the changes became all the more apparent. She was glowing, bursting with a newfound beauty and sexuality he found intimidating. She was still rather snooty, and always thought she knew what was best, but her knowledge no longer remained only with books.

Harry had asked her point blank if she had had sex with her lover, and she had seemed shocked, before saying that she had in fact, not slept with him yet. In fact he had not even kissed her.

Reassured but nonetheless worried for her, Harry watched for some sign that everything was not right in her world, or that the girl he had always held a soft spot for was in over her head. Hermione remained secretive though, and joyous, relishing the freedom she had with her paramour in muggle London. She would not tell Harry anything; Where they met, how long it had been going on, who he was in the wizarding world if anyone at all.

(He prayed it wasn't Dudley) She was as tight lipped with her secret as she was free with her knowledge. He found it a definite strain on their friendship, and worried about Ron's reaction, but what else could he do? She herself had told him she was happy.

Happy in a way Ron or himself could never make her.

One night, he had been standing on the wrought iron balcony - painted white to match the trim of the yellow building - and he had seen his small and sprightly friend slip quietly from the front doorway and stand for a nervous moment in the pooled light of a street lamp.

A shadow had sinuously detached itself from the rest and moved closer to the girl, and for a moment Harry almost called a warning until the girl herself had shyly stepped forward and touched that shadows hand. Stunned but curious, Harry tried to make out the male form in the darkness, but all he could see was shining black hair and the dimness of skin. Hermione was petite in form, but she appeared even daintier beside the lean height of the spare man whose fingers seemed to drift close to her, then fall away, and

smaller from what he could see.

They moved off quietly and quickly, and as they walked through another foggy puddle of light shed from a lamp, Harry saw the man wore all black and his hair was loose and dark.

As they moved from sight Harry couldn't shake the sure feeling that the man Hermione was in love with was frighteningly familiar. Instead, he turned his face to the sky and contemplated the fate of his world, and his place within it. When he had come to Hogwart's, he had thought he found a family; a place to belong to.

As it was, he felt as alone as ever.


	5. Chapter 5: Glass Irises

_I love you._

_I cannot bear it._

"What happens when we our time here ends?"

They had not bothered to face the question through the tentative gestures that came with newly discovered passions; the awkward touches, the heart skipping newness that made one lose their breath and want to smile like a fool.

But he did not often smile, and she did not ask him too.

Instead they deluded themselves into thinking that they could make things work; That the world would not shun them if they were discovered, their peers would not be repulsed if they only knew.

"I am certain you are as aware as I myself am," he chides sternly, but beneath his rebuke there is pain.

She stands dejectedly, looking all her seventeen years with her riotous mass of chestnut curls and sad brown eyes. Her pale hands, with their clean trimmed nails and slender fingers, twist themselves together in a parody of a handshake. She smiles at him, tentatively, and he can feel his heart aching for tears sparkle though she tries to be brave.

_I cannot bear it._

"Come, sweet," he whispers, but he dares not touch her for they have not yet crossed those lines and now he knows they never will. "we were fools to tread this dangerous ground. You are young, and to shackle yourself to a man nearly twenty years your senior, and one so tainted as I, is a fools gambit."

As he speaks, he walks around the richly decorated hotel room, muggle devices scattered about, and cobalt blue mixing with silver trimmings to make the room as cool as it is impersonal.

This was a world in which he had no place.

She was a thing to which he had no right.

He tips his head back, cursing himself that he had let it go too far already. Much too far.

"Stop regretting it," she chokes out behind him, and her voice is thick with tears and anger.

He turns to her, his black hair falling into his eyes.

"You don't understand what you've given me. You can't understand that you've made me happier than I've ever been."

She sweeps her tears away agitatedly, and his chest clenches when her eyes fall closed and her sooty lashes brush her cheeks.

And he wants to believe he cannot help himself any longer.

Let them call him a demon, a sinner, a pervert, a manipulator.

A Death Eater. I cannot… 

Let them heckle and call and insult and defile the only sacred thing he's ever wanted to possess. They exalt him and revile him as the murderer of Albus Dumbledore. He did not need to add to his list of atrocious sins.

_Bear it…Hermione_.

He steps forward, wanting to go to her, touch her, kiss her… But they never have, and he cannot stand to make such a move in case she realizes how wrong this was and was appalled.

He is everything she should not want.

But she takes the choice from him and surges forward into his arms, and he reflexively opens them to her. Then, when the shock of her impulse has passed them both, he draws in a shaky breath and breaths in the scent of her hair.

And he knows it is wrong, and he knows it is taboo, and the cruel, embittered parts of him want to shove her away, cut her down with his silver tongue and make her bleed inside; make her tears fall hard until she dares not approach him again, dares not rain soft kisses across his face, his hands as she does now; never taking more than was silently offered...merely because he is capable of it.

And for a moment he feels the urge to snatch her closer to him, to capture her mouth and actually kiss her, but he cannot for his deepest fear is to behold revulsion in her dark eyes. His hands flicker disjointedly over her arms, fluttering over her back because in her show of tenderness he was lost. He has no tender emotions to give to her, to spread over her.

Her soft, curling brown hair tickles his nose, and he is trapped by her; by her skin and her scent and her warmth and her words and he does not know how to escape.

_I cannot bear it._

He can feel her pressed to him, the warmth of her breasts, the clutch of her fingers, and he stills himself because he knows he must not take what she offers no matter how desperately his soul screams for it. He grinds his teeth, the infamous sneer becoming a pained grimace as he loses face with himself.

She is still buried against his chest, his arms hopelessly limp, but she seems content and so he does not worry. Instead he battles with himself, the needs of the flesh always hampering the rational of the mind, and leaving the affection starved professor with gasping breath and a struggling loss over what to do.

It is too much! It is too little! He cannot accept her touch or her gentleness. She is only a child in the world, and he could be her father, her mentor, or her teacher, but never her lover.

No matter how badly he longed for her.

There is no going back 

But the hot, selfish, angry part of him screams that he take, that he use her, that she be his and only his because she would be something to cling to when the pain comes. She will be honest, and strong, and stupid and beautiful when it comes to him, and he would never have to fear that aching, raw loneliness again.

_And no going forward._

It was then that he realized the stinging in his eye was a tear.

"How can I bear to see you in this world? Knowing what they think of you… Knowing what I know," she whispers, and he nearly chokes on his tight throat because it means that she has resolved herself, and is willing to let go with much less fight than he would have thought.

_No staying within the present._

His hands – hands that have killed, have seduced, have tortured – reach out and tangle themselves in her hair; hair he had once dreamed of seeing splayed over his pillow, and he allows himself to grip her as tightly as he wishes.

_For this was good bye._

"You do not have to think of me if you cannot bear the thought," he says, and his voice is steady though he feels as if his entire body is shaking..

"I cannot bear the thought," she affirms, but her voice trembles, muffled by his black shirt.

Her hands creep upwards, unable to reach his own long black hair because she is so petite, and instead settle on his shirt, clutching the fabric.

"We are fools," he hisses harshly, and he rests his cheek against her head, bending spider-like and predatory around her.

"And why is that so wrong?" Hermione asks forlornly, and he smiles

despite himself. "I want to be with you, I can't just let go… I…"

He breaks in, looking down at her with a sort of desperate light in his fathomless eyes.

"Do not say it! I cannot bear it if you say it."

She looks up at him, her gaze luminous with tears and her skin pale. She is as beautiful in her pain as she is in her joy, and perhaps that had been -

_His downfall. _

- what had attracted him to her in the first place. She is beauty in anything she undertakes. He lets her go, distancing himself from her warmth and the smell of her skin.

_Morning glories and dew._

Her chest heaves, and she blinks rapidly, attempting to garner her courage and face him as the adversary he is supposed to be.

He expected her to sob, to scream, to plead…

"I love you," she whispers resolutely.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

Something inside of him shatters, and his hands snap out, dragging her small form to him in a fierce embrace. Her own hands reach up, and he lets her drag his face down until he could feel her sweet breath on his lips.

"I love you."

There is no place for love here.

She repeats, and she kisses him longingly, inexpertly, her – I_ cannot bear _- mouth like hell and heaven against his - _I cannot_ - own. He groans against her lips, and – _I cannot_ - he tugs her towards the bed, tumbling her down upon it and kissing – _I cannot bear_ – her further, harder. Breathless, for she is the first to kiss him at will.

I cannot… 

Hermione gazes up at Severus with liquid eyes, red with tears and sadness, as he reaches for the buttons of her green dress and undoes them slowly, exaltedly, the uncertainty and doubt blinding within his eyes.

_I love you._

_I cannot bear it._


	6. Chapter 6: Glass Morning Glories

They had been friends once.

Professor Snape comes through the door of the lounge; impatient, brisk. He has never been one to mince words or dally long, but his host is admiring the smooth, clear sheen of his fingernails with deliberate slowness and exacting criticism when he seems to find a slight flaw on his left index. Snape can read the grey eyes easily.

That will not do at all.

"Good morning, Severus, most honoured murderer" he drawls, languid and arrogant and hateful.

He knows his tone irritates the pale, lanky professor for he smiles indolently; so painfully, dangerously like his son. He now waits for his guest to say something, knowing that the words will flow darkly acidic and velveteen from his mouth. He would expect nothing less.

"Lucius," Snape murmurs, "I expect you did not invite me here to discuss the weather over tea and biscuits?"

A small frown flickers across the other mans face, marring the pale blonde beauty of him. Severus's answer was not as artful as he had hoped. He wonders, perhaps, if Snape is slipping.

Snape is wary and suspicious as to why he was summoned, a part of him _knowing_ and praying and feeling the weight of himself cracking the outward façade. Lucius must have liked what he saw – the fear – because he smiled.

"The weather…"

Gracefully, years of being at the top of every social circle making the practiced movement an art form, Lucius extends his hand to a decanter of brandy sitting on the sideboard. He remembers the blonde enjoyed a fine brandy on cooler evenings.

They had been confidants once.

"Is sadly dark."

Turning his grey assessing eyes away from the sunny window – always looking for that weak link in the armour – Lucius smiled.

Bitterly. Brutally.

Snape realized with a sharp wave of panic that Lucius Malfoy _knew _what he should not know. That she could already be _dead_. The crack widens, gapes, spills, and it is raw and wounding and bloody as he pours out of the awful thing he has created. Her dark eyes could be empty, her wildly curling hair matted with blood, her curving, eager body twisted in pain. A moan wells up inside his throat, is bit back and swallowed. He feels as if his chest will burst because there is so much pouring out all at once. He has never felt so much before, and an unhinged, madness driven part of him wonders idly if this was what it was like to die.

But Lucius says nothing, pouring himself a small glass of the fine vintage and returning

to his seat where he crosses his long legs and smirks.

They had been partners once.

Snape cannot find words, feeling as if his skin was the only thing holding him together and if he moved – if he _spoke_ – then something inside him would crumble, and he would lose his mind.

"How," he manages to whisper, and Lucius shrugs.

It is a gesture that is entirely too casual on his shoulders. It makes Snape shudder.

"Not in the ways you may think."

Snape finds that he must sink to his knees or he will fall, and his hand, thin and pale, latches onto the wooden arm of a chair. He clenches it so hard his knuckles crack even as the plush oriental carpet soothes his knees.

"Now, now, Severus. No need for such melodrama."

They had been united once.

But there is every need, for he may have just destroyed the only precious thing he had owned…But it had only been for a moment! Those stolen hours could not have cost them so much!

"Is she dead?"

His tone is listless, wooden.

"Are you?" Lucius scoffs, sipping his alcohol and tapping a well perfected fingernail

against his armrest.

Bewildered, unable to focus completely on Malfoy because the overwhelming enormity of what he had _done_ swamped him in a tide of guilt, Snape could only stare. Lucius arched a pale brow, his eyes hardening to chips of rock.

"I find the company you choose to keep… disheartening. But I will not forbid my friend the only real _emotion_ he has ever been freely given."

Malfoy's sneer is damning evidence that it is not emotion he believes Snape wants from the mudblood of Harry Potter.

"Lucius," he begins, but the man swipes a hand through the air, cutting him off.

"Do not, Severus. Keep your little mudblood and defy everything you were supposed to stand for. _Your purpose_. This shall be our _dirty little secret_, for all the times you have been beside me, and our history as friends. But make no mistake, if you are discovered, I will aid him as he tears you limb from limb."

They had been brothers once.

So grateful, so sickened, Snape stood. He could feel his heart pounding and the quaking heaviness in his limbs. He would not thank Lucius.

He would _abhor _Lucius.

He turns to leave, holding his spine straight and his shoulders back, when the sinuously deceptive voice slides through the room once more.

"But tell me, Severus… Do you think she will stand by you? When she discovers the dark, perverse things you have done so willingly? Will she see you the same when she knows of the blood on your hands? The screams in your ears? Tell me truly… Do you think she will stay when you are greyed and brittle and ugly?"

Snape closed his eyes, strides from the room with purpose.

He would not answer, not even to himself.

Behind him, Lucius swirls the dark liquid around in his glass, recalling a different world between them, when the two young men had stood side by side and tried to change their times for the better.

Yes, they had been friends once.


	7. Chapter 7: Glass Orchids

The word _control_ echoed through his mind when he spotted his delicate, china doll wife bending gently over a pruned rose bush. In her hand, slender and long, just as her sons, there carefully dangled a slim, rosewood wand while the other swept across her warming face in a soft, elegant gesture.

_Mine._

Studying her from the shadows, Lucius drew his black velvet cloak tighter around him and lifted his nose. Her slender, willowy body bent carefully, like a water lily swaying in a pond, and she flicked her wand, snipping an errant leaf.

_Property. _

She was that; a glowing, gentle treasure to dangle upon his arm for the world to see – for the world to know – the calibre it took to be a Malfoy wife; to bare the Malfoy heirs. Property, for there were times when she mattered as much to him as his pocket watch did, and other times when he'd gladly lay down his life to make her smile.

_Ownership._

For he did own her. He chose what she wore, and what she ate, and who she spoke too, and she complied because she loved him, and was a dutiful wife, a wonderful wife. A trophy wife.

_Possession. _

Because every time she looked at him with her blue eyes sparkling and a smile gracing her red lips he felt bewitched, obsessed, _and frenzied_.

Narcissa Malfoy, former Beauxbaton patron, former paragon of virtue at Hogwarts had deigned to come down from her pedestal and become the lover of a blood drenched Slytherin; the bearer of his Death Eater children. She was tainted by him.

_Stained._

Swiftly, knowing he could hold back no longer, Lucius went to her, wrapped his arms around her thin waist and was gratified to hear her gasp of pleasure.

"Lucius?" she whispered, as ever the will-o-wisp; the frail fairy swathed in white and yellow and blue.

He breathed in the scent of her hair without answering, enjoying the feel of her breeze cooled skin through his leather gloves, the heavy thickness of his cloak cutting her away from the world.

_Trapped in the circle of his arms, _forever

"Hello, darling," he murmured against the iced crystal scent of her hair. Her slim hands came up to touch his forearms, still unable to turn for his grasp was so tight. "I was watching you."

"Oh?"

She sounded slightly surprised, pleased, and Lucius slid his hands down her arms and over her breasts. She sighed, leaning her head back and letting him explore freely. His fingers trailed across her flat stomach, and stilled, remembering the reason he had been gone from Narcissa's side for an instant.

"Lucius?" she murmured, her voice a tinkle of bells.

She tried to turn, and he let her, staring into her hauntingly beautiful face and seeing the possible Veela ancestry that radiated from her like sin.

"Snape was here," he drawled.

"Did he say why?"

She cocked her head to the side, looking like a young, free girl instead of the society bride she was. This was a face reserved only for him. The useless, worthless crowds outside of Malfoy Manor would see only the cold, aristocratic pride of Narcissa Malfoy, for her inner softness was his zealously guarded treasure.

"I called him here," before she could say anything he grit his teeth. "It seems that Snape has taken a mudblooded student as a lover."

Her gasp could mean many things; horror at the thought of Snape consorting with the impure, repugnance at the thought of Snape molesting a student…Lucius had never questioned Narcissa's views on muggle born children and house types; he would let nothing mar her perfection in his eyes.

"Does he… Are they…"

"In love?"

He spits the words, finding it hard to believe that anyone would love a muggle sympathizer, let alone a muggle born mudblood themselves.

"Yes."

She smiles then, a soft, wilting smile, and reaches up to stroke his fine blonde hair. There is a secret in her cerulean eyes, and the fury inside him banks for she dares to keep something from him, but is pushed aside by the soft touch of her hand.

"I received a letter from Draco, today. He'll visit before returning to… him," she says, sounding happy, but the secret remains and Lucius understands now that it must be about the boy.

Another plea to bring him home? Another skirmish with some ill bred muggle? He decides abruptly that he will not waste his time on such things. His soft and gentle wife was standing before him in all her pale loveliness, and he would think of his offspring's shortcomings later.

"We shall retire, dear," he orders, and she slips her hand through his in a sign of acquiescence.

The thought of Severus with his filth displeased him, and he would sate himself in the purity and willingness of his wife. He would wash away the stench of the muggle loving from his mind, then absolve the world of the same, disgusting pestilence, one muggle slaughtering, Dark Mark lit night at a time.


	8. Chapter 8: Glass Gardenia

Draco finds his mother perched carefully on the edge of a wrought iron chair on the veranda, and wonders idly, if her fair skin will bruise against such contact. She smiles, the brilliant, joyful smile that makes her look like a school girl and enraptures his father so much at his approach.

"Hello, mother."

He leans back into the chair opposite her, tenting his fingers and resting his elbows on the thin arm rests. She studies him carefully, assessing, and he bares her scrutiny with no more then a smirk. The wind drifts lazily through his fine blonde hair.

"I am hale and hearty, mother. Fret not."

She leans back into her chair as well, glances carefully about as if to divulge a great secret.

And then she does.

"You are in love," she murmurs, seeming pleased.

He gapes at her, composure forgotten and damned, and for a moment he can hear wind drifting through the trees and a bird crying out in the silence with deafening clarity. He recovers quickly, – admirably – cursing her abilities and hoping that she said no more.

"Love is for fools and adolescents, mother," he says smoothly, and Narcissa shakes her head.

"Who is she?"

Irrationally, Draco is defensive, protective, knowing that if his mother knew, then Lucius would know and his world would be destroyed, for _she_ would be destroyed. It was a dangerous web they wove together, and it was ever binding them tighter, blissfully closer and maddeningly farther apart.

Narcissa studies her son, feeling motherly pride swell in her breast. Draco is so very _handsome_, and so composed and confident. He could have his pick of mates, but clearly he has chosen one he should not have, for his eyes have turned to flint as they do when he is angry.

She should not have probed. Brushing a strand of blonde hair from her face, Narcissa smiles and gazes out over the expanse of green grass belonging to Lucius. Her heart swells again, thinking of her dark and beautiful husband, and she cannot resist turning back and looking at Draco once more.

He is the symbol of them entwined; His bone structure her own, but his harsh personality and silver eyes belonging to his father. He is lean and tall; graceful but not gawky. His is the kind of body that would not have worked if anyone else had been carrying it.

"Is she lovely?" she whispers, and this time a flash of pain darkens the depths of his grey eyes to storm clouds.

"She is not for me to have."

"She belongs to another?"

Hatred, ugly and seething and monstrous crosses her sons beautiful face and makes him vicious, the firm lip curling over white teeth and his eyes narrowing sharply. There is only one Draco hates so much; the one the rest of the world adores; Harry Potter.

She searches her brain, listing the social gossip that spread throughout the upper classes quicker then wildfire. Patricia Parkinson's mother laughing snidely about Potter breeding with his own class… How their children would have unsightly mops of _red _to live with.

She recalls a set of wide, curious brown eyes and a fall of firelight hair. Pale skin scattered with freckles and a warm, happy smile.

Oh, Draco… 

"The little Weasley girl," she sighs, and Draco jerks his eyes to hers, that hideous, possessive, protective rage hampered only by a flash of fear.

Narcissa feels a pang of unease that he would harm her merely for knowing. He is much too open, too vulnerable. If Lucius were to know, then he would obliterate her.

Though the love of her husband is great, the sudden, sorrowful pity she holds for her child is greater and she gazes at him sadly. He hangs his head, something a Malfoy should _never _do, and closes his eyes tightly for a moment before straightening again.

"She is not for me to have," he reaffirms, looking distantly away into the morning sky.

She wishes she could tell him otherwise; could use all her influence and sway to _give _him the girl… But she was something beyond his reach. There is a thick line of blood and black magic and misery swelling between them that could not be broached as her own with Lucius had.

"Draco…"

She dares not ask how much of her he has had. If he was anything like his father then nothing would stop him but himself. If he truly knew he could not have her, then he was safe.

He must be safe.

He glances back at her, secrets once again hidden within the silver of his eyes and the arrogant smirk on his lips, and she feels apprehension and sadness drift hazily over her.

He would not give up.

But he had no choice.

"Why her, Draco? She is a…"

Narcissa halts herself, for she cannot share her husband's views.

"A Weasley?" he sneers, "A muggle loving, poverty stricken nothing who I cannot contain myself around?"

He snickers; a cold, sinister sound.

"I'll kill her, mother. If she ever denied me I would kill her because it would kill _me_ to be shamed by such a person. A _Weasley_; and I could not live without her. It's a sickness. It spreads through my veins like ivy – wrapping itself over and under _every fibre of my being_."

He ends in a snarl, gets up, paces. His handsome face is distorted, and his mother wonders if he has ever spoken this way to the girl. If she understood how it was for him; the risks, the costs, the betrayals. Draco adores his father, idolizes him to the point of mirroring his image, his achievements, his views. She looks away, feeling useless and pained to only listen.

"And she is so simple, and so good, and so _odd_. She takes walks in the rain because she likes to taste it. Her laugh always ends in a snicker and she plays with her ear when she is nervous. She wears awful, cast off robes and is happy. She has audacious red hair and ghastly freckles and she is too short, and she is so beautiful I can hardly breath!"

He ends in a gasp, flushing, eyes wild, and glancing around as if he expected Lucius to arise from the ground with girl in hand and whisper the killing curse. He looks so guilty and humiliated by his outburst that Narcissa could say nothing but the truth.

"I will not tell a soul, dearest. She is your secret to keep, but you must guard it better then you do now, unless you wish for a swift death for you both."

He scoffs, sneering again.

"She will never be mine to keep, mother, and I long for that very thing each day I arise to find us both alive and not together."

He does not look at her as he walks away, and when he returns to France a week later for more training, Lucius watches him go proudly, assured that his son would be everything he hoped him to be.

And Narcissa prayed, that the girl understood the gift she had been given, and the burden she now had to bare.


End file.
